Gelpi, Albert 1931–

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Gelpi, Albert 1931–

PERSONAL: Surname is pronounced Jel-pi; born July 19, 1931, in New Orleans, LA; son of Albert Joseph (a businessman) and Alice Gelpi; married Barbara Charles-worth (a professor), June 14, 1965; children: Christopher Francis Cecil, Adrienne Catherine Ardelle. Education: Loyola University, New Orleans, A.B., 1951; Tulane University, M.A., 1956; Harvard University, Ph.D., 1962. Religion: Roman Catholic.

ADDRESSES: Home—Stanford, CA. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Educator, writer, and editor. Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, assistant professor of English, 1962–67; Stanford University, Stanford, CA, associate professor, 1967–75, professor of English, William Robertson Coe Professor of American Literature, 1978–99, professor emeritus, 1999–, also served as associate dean of graduate studies, chairman of the American Studies Program, and chairman of the English Department. Founding editor of Cambridge Studies in American Literature and Culture.

AWARDS, HONORS: Guggenheim fellow, 1977; Dean's Award for Distinguished Teaching, Stanford University, 1996.

WRITINGS:

Emily Dickinson: The Mind of the Poet, Harvard University Press (Cambridge, MA), 1965.

(Editor) The Poet in America: 1650 to the Present, D.C. Heath (Lexington, MA), 1974.

(Editor, with wife, Barbara Charlesworth Gelpi) Adrienne Rich's Poetry, W.W. Norton (New York, NY), 1975, reprinted, 1993.

The Tenth Muse: The Psyche of the American Poet, Harvard University Press (Cambridge, MA), 1975, reprinted, Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 1991.

(Editor) Wallace Stevens, the Poetics of Modernism, Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 1985.

A Coherent Splendor: The American Poetic Renaissance, 1910–1950, Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 1987.

(Compiler and editor, with Barbara Charlesworth Gelpi) Adrienne Cecile Rich, Adrienne Rich's Poetry and Prose: Poems, Prose, Reviews, and Criticism, W.W. Norton (New York, NY), 1993.

(Editor and author of introduction) Denise Levertov: Selected Criticism, University of Michigan Press (Ann Arbor, MI), 1993.

(Editor and author of afterword) William Everson, The Blood of the Poet: Selected Poems (poems), Broken Moon Press (Seattle, WA), 1994.

Living in Time: The Poetry of C. Day Lewis, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1998.

(Editor and author of introduction) William Everson, Dark God of Eros: A William Everson Reader, Santa Clara University (Santa Clara, CA), 2003.

(Selector and author of introduction) Robinson Jeffers, The Wild God of the World: An Anthology of Robinson Jeffers, Stanford University Press (Stanford, CA), 2003.

(Editor, with Robert J. Bertholf) Robert Edward Duncan and Denise Levertov, The Letters of Robert Duncan and Denise Levertov, Stanford University Press (Stanford, CA), 2004.

(Editor, with Robert J. Bertholf) Robert Duncan and Denise Levertov: The Poetry of Politics, the Politics of Poetry, Stanford University Press (Stanford, CA), 2006.

Contributor of essays, articles, and reviews to periodicals.

SIDELIGHTS: A longtime literature professor, Albert Gelpi's academic interests include American poetry, the intellectual backgrounds of literary expression, and the connections between American letters and American painting. Among his books is Living in Time: The Poetry of C. Day Lewis, in which Gelpi discusses the life and work of Great Britain's former Poet Laureate and makes a case for placing him among the primary British poets of the twentieth century. Marsha Bryant, writing in Modern Philology, noted the "rhythmic force and sheer eloquence of Gelpi's own writing."

Gelpi has also served as editor or coeditor of several books, including The Letters of Robert Duncan and Denise Levertov, which he coedited with Robert J. Bertholf. The book contains all the correspondence between the American poets Duncan and Levertov from 1953 to 1985. The correspondence ranges from discussions of the creative process to politics and their opposition to the Vietnam War. Writing in the Library Journal, Scott Hightower commented: "Gelpi … provides [a] firstrate introduction." Hightower also referred to The Letters of Robert Duncan and Denise Levertov, as "a big book for those looking for insight into be nature of poetry." Also noting Gelpi's "rich contextualizing essay," Chicago Review contributor Peter O'Leary wrote: "The most interesting thing about The Letters of Robert Duncan and Denise Levertov is the love story it chronicles." Gelpi is also the editor of The Blood of the Poet: Selected Poems, which presents the poetry of William Everson. A Publishers Weekly contributor wrote: "Gelpi's astute introduction is essential in helping readers situate the writing in the life."